LSAT Tea-Leaf Reading: February 2015 Edition

20,358 people took the LSAT in February, up 859 (4.4 percent) from 2014. Notably, that’s growth in two consecutive testing administrations. Wow indeed.

This ends our LSAT year with 101,689 total LSAT takers, which is a record low going back to 1986. Back in those days, you said you were listening to Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. or Heart’s eponymous album, but we all know you couldn’t take Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album and the soundtracks to Miami Vice and Rocky IV out of your tape deck. (Cultured readers from my age bracket will recognize how Rocky IV‘s villain’s theme closely resembles that of Unicron’s from the Transformers movie of the same period: Both were crafted by Vince DiCola.)

Back to less exciting 2015, I think there’s a little room left for LSAT takers to drop, but applicants aren’t shying away from law school as they were in the past. They’re down a mere 7 percent from this time last year.

For some perspective on the law school crunch, here’re the trends since the 1960s.

The only unobvious insight I can give you from this chart is how amazing it is that peak LSAT in 2009-11 just did not translate into peak applicants. Much of it is due to non-first-time test-takers, but it’s a real harbinger for how things will look going forward. We may be at the applicant trough, but folks, they ain’t coming back.